Not Applicable
Not Applicable
The present invention relates to order picker trucks, in particular to an order picker truck which provides easy forming of a load on a load platform movable relative to an operator platform.
Order picker trucks are used to pick products from shelves in order to fill a customer order. The products are typically stored in a rack system in which a plurality of unit loads of many products are stored. Each unit load, generally, contains a single type of product, and a customer typically requires one or more boxes of product picked from many different unit loads. This requires an operator to travel up and down one or more aisles of the rack system to pick products from many different locations in the rack system to fill the customer""s order.
Typically, each product picked by the operator is placed on a load platform fixed to an operator platform. The platforms are mounted to a telescoping member forming part of a telescoping mast assembly fixed to a truck chassis. The truck chassis is supported by ground engaging wheels which allow the truck to travel in aisles between rows of storage racks. The telescoping mast assembly vertically moves the platforms to reach elevated storage locations in the rack structure.
As the number of picked products increases, the operator stacks products on top of each other to build a load comprising the specific products ordered by the customer. The stacked products increases the height of the load on the load platform. As the height of the load on the load platform increases, adding additional products to the top of load becomes increasingly difficult for the operator. For example, heavier products must be lifted higher by the operator to add the heavy product to the load. In addition, as the load height increases, the load can become unstable. Continued movement of the load platform, such as vertically to a different elevation or horizontally as the order picker truck travels down an aisle, can cause an unstable load to fall off of the load platform which may damage or destroy the product.
The present invention provides an order picker truck which includes a load former independent of a load platform to maintain the stability of a load and allow easy building of a load on the load platform. The order picker truck includes an extendible mast, and a load platform slidably fixed relative to the extendible mast. An operator platform is slidably fixed relative to the load platform, and a load former is fixed to the operator platform. The load former defines a volume over a portion of the load platform to guide an operator building the load and stabilize the load on the load platform.
A general objective of the present invention is to provide an order picker truck which stabilizes a load built on the load platform. This objective is accomplished by provided a load former which defines a volume above the load platform to stabilize a load.
Another objective of the present invention is to reduce the effort required by an operator to build a load on the load platform. This objective is accomplished by providing a load platform which is vertically movable relative to the operator platform in order to locate a top of the load at a height convenient to the operator for the addition of objects to the load top.
This and still other objectives and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the description which follows. In the detailed description below, preferred embodiments of the invention will be described in reference to the accompanying drawings. These embodiments do not represent the full scope of the invention. Rather the invention may be employed in other embodiments. Reference should therefore be made to the claims herein for interpreting the breadth of the invention.